How do you gather testimonials

Offer a discount on their monthly fee, or some kind of special offer if they submit an honest testimonial about their experience with you. It's not pushy, and it could lead to a lot more business down the line. Go for it!

truly - that's a (truly) fantastic idea. I have been wondering the same thing (about collecting reviews / testimonials) because I don't want to sound pushy either. I know that other folks who have pressured me for reviews of their products or services in the past have made me feel uncomfortable from time to time and I certainly don't want to do that with my customer base!

Well the free route, is simply to ask for feedback after the campaign is done and over with, I'm sure they'll be able to share some thoughts and sentiments with you.

If you are doing this randomly, giving them something for participating is always a nice piece of encouragement.

I agree that simply asking them is a good method too without always having to give them something in return. It's been my experience that if people like your product, they're often more than happy to help you out.

We just ask them politely IF they want to support and share their experience.

If they do, we go on. If not, all good.

If you done redesign for them tell about the power of videos and how they could bring customers and how this service alone cost $xxx/month to any other client but you are willing to offer them a free run if they are willing to submit an honest VIDEO review for you.Take your camera and go shoot that testimonial.
Offer them something you're not implementing as a complimentary 1 time run for their feedback.
That's what i would do.

I usually ask them politely. One thing that I did this past week after a thread was started was offered a free service. I went over to a owner I knew and asked if I could set them up a free site. Of course he said yes and wanted to know the reason why it was free.

I told him I am trying to gain more customers and since I knew him and he had a new business if he would just give me a good review (if he liked the site of course) or testimonial for my website and agree to be contacted if necessary by potential clients I would do it.

Needless to say I got the ok and he loved the site so much he is going to pay me for it and let me do some SEO. Sometimes you have to take a step of faith. One thing I highly suggest for free stuff is target new businesses or owners that you know. This way you dont get someone that will expect or want the moon when they are not paying you anything

Also the new ones if you do something basic or slightly above once business picks up they may hire you to update the site and then you make money. Its a win win if you do it the right way and strategize.

One thing to notice is the power of pictures of someone from the company and their customer.

Not easy, especially when they are out of the country, but worth gold.

Offer them a discount ahead of time if they promise to give your a testimonial when you have delivered what you promised to deliver. Then gently remind them of their promise when it's time. Even then you will only get 10% of them to leave a review. Do that long enough and you will have a nice collection of reviews from happy customers. It worked for us at least.

Letters are a good way to ask.

I always send each client a card, thanking them for their business the day after we finish their job.

I include a short, 1 page, 5 question survey (What did you like best about how we helped you? What could we do better?) and a stamped addressed envlope.

They are usually surprised and pleased to get a thankyou card because so few people bother to send one. Most scribble a couple of sentences onto the survey and return it.

(It's important to make this as easy as possible. Most do it as soon as they read the card, then forget about us).

When their survey comes back I call and ask if it's OK to quote them.

Don't even need to speak to the boss. Say to his assistant: "Thank you for replying to the survey. I'd like to quote what was said. Can you ask the boss, and if the answer's 'No' then call me and we won't quote him. If it's fine with him, don't bother to call back."

Again make it as easy as possible for them.

If no-one calls back within a couple of days, use the positive comments as a testimonial. There's no need to quote any negative stuff, because you didn't say that you want to quote the whole survey.

Lots of short testimonials from lots of different are more compelling than just a couple of long testimonials from one or two clients.

I offered a $25 gift certificate to my first 6 clients back when I was starting out (3 months ago) and I got ONE back! I was expecting 3 or 4. Kind of pointless to only have 1 testimonial on your site so I am looking to gather more.

Just buy some from me on Fiverr ($5 each). In fact most of the testimonials I do are for SEO companies.

Thanks everyone for you replies. So many interesting methods here. I'm gonna go ahead and try em out. Just another reason why I love this forum.

Do a good job (paid or pro bono) and then ask for the testimonial while they are still excited and happy about your service - do not wait. Often times, the initial excitement can wear off and when you are ready to ask for testimonial, your client may not be as enthusiastic.

Also I try to document results as well as value I bring so I can prompt my client with what they can write about. Make it easy for them to write reviews so and they will do it.

Good Luck!
Louisa

Most of our clients have sent their kind words over via email or support ticket when we close out a job. There are a few on the site so far but we are still going through past emails to have clients add their own and all are offered a private discount if they choose to use it on any upcoming projects.

You can people on Fiverr to make a video testimonial for you. It's kind of difficult if the people you pay have no idea what your product is, however.

You could mail or email them a letter thanking them for doing business with you, and then offer a free gift to them if they provide you with a testimonial. Tell them they can receive an additional bonus gift if they provide you with a photograph also.

Offer multiple means of response because not everyone wants to reply in the same way. I do this and it works for me.